Minimum Viable Product – It’s What You Don’t See

Take a moment or two to gaze at the image below. What do you see?

Do you see white dots embedded within the grid connected by diagonal white lines? If you do, try and ignore them. Chances are, your brain won’t let you even though the white circles and diagonal lines don’t exist. Their “thereness” is created by the thin black lines. By carefully drawing a simple repetitive pattern of black lines, your brain has filled in the void and enhanced the image with white dots and diagonal white lines. You cannot not do this. This cognitive process is important to be aware of if you are a product owner because both your agile delivery team members and clients will run this program without fail.

Think of the black lines as the minimum viable product definition for one of your sprints. When shown to your team or your client, they will naturally fill the void for what’s next or what’s missing. Maybe as a statement, most likely as a question. But what if the product owner defined the minimum viable product further and presented, metaphorically, something like this:

By removing the white space from the original image there are fewer possibilities for your team and the client to explore. We’ve reduced their response to our proposed solution to a “yes” or “no” and in doing so have started moving down the path of near endless cycles of the product owner guessing what the client wants and the agile delivery team guessing what the product owner wants. Both the client and the team will grow increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress. Played out too long, the client is likely to doubt our skills and competency at finding a solution.

On the other hand, by strategically limiting the information presented in the minimum viable product (or effort, if you like) we invite the client and the agile delivery team to explore the white space. This will make them co-creators of the solution and more fully invested in its success. Since they co-created the solution, they are much more likely to view the solution as brilliant, perfect, and the shiniest of shiny objects.

I can’t remember where I heard or read this, but in the first image the idea is that the black lines are you talking and the white spaces are you listening.